Look, we never expected Deep Blue Sea 2 to send a positive message either.

As much as we all love Jaws, one of the greatest films ever made, there’s no doubt that it helped perpetuate mistruths about our finned friends. Who wasn’t immediately terrified of large bodies of water after seeing Jaws? The classic film has been keeping us out of the water for over 40 years now, and will continue to do so for generations to come.

But how much of a threat do sharks actually pose to swimmers here in America? Last year, there were a reported 55 unprovoked shark attacks on humans in the United States, with zero fatalities reported. That’s right, not a single person was killed by a shark in the United States last year, and it’s not at all uncommon for that to be an annual stat.

In fact, there have been very few fatal shark attacks in the United States in the past 100 years. On the flip side, humans kill an estimated 100 million sharks EVERY YEAR.

Needless to say, sharks have more to fear than humans do, and director Darin Scott and the film’s writers intentionally wove a good deal of pro-shark social commentary into this year’s Deep Blue Sea 2. Yes, the movie is ultimately about killer sharks, but it also highlights how unfairly horror movies have treated sharks over the years.

In the opening sequence of Deep Blue Sea 2, we see two shark poachers brutally attacked and killed by a pack of sharks, which plays out like a nasty bit of revenge. The poachers are out on the deep blue sea cutting the fins off of sharks for the purposes of them being turned into shark fin soup, which is in reality one of the leading reasons why so many sharks are killed every year. Their fins fetch high prices for the sought-after dish, and the process for procuring them is especially upsetting. Once a shark is caught, its fins are cut off, and the shark is then left to sink to the bottom of the ocean and die.

Seeing shark poachers get their just desserts in DBS 2, well, it’s kinda satisfying.

And it’s in the very next scene that Scott makes the message clear. Main character Misty Calhoun is a shark conservationist/expert, and she dispels horror movie myths about sharks in her opening scene, wherein she’s lecturing a group of students…

“You know the idea that great whites are these malicious killing machines, roving the shoreline for some swimmer to chomp on… it’s just pure fiction perpetuated by Hollywood. These magnificent, and unfairly represented, creatures are simply looking for fish, or a nice fat seal to eat. Any time there is a human attack, it’s just a case of mistaken identity. Sharks are an extremely important part of our ocean’s ecosystem. And sadly, they are being killed at an average rate of 100 million per year. For purposes as frivolous as a bowl of fin soup. That is why the institute my mother founded – Five Oceans Institute – is fully dedicated to shark research. And to educating the public on how important it is to protect the species.”

After seeing Deep Blue Sea 2, and being pleasantly surprised by the message, I reached out to Darin Scott for comment. He told me that the film’s message was very intentional.

“Yes, that’s something we wanted to do because people’s image of the shark as a malevolent and evil monster contributes to a lot of abuse of the species,” Scott explained to us, echoing his main character’s aforementioned speech. “More people die in shark movies every year than are actually attacked by sharks.”

So enjoy shark attack horror. I sure do. But be aware that humans are a lot scarier to sharks than sharks should be to humans. Reality is more horrifying than fiction.